The Red Flower
by MythicElf
Summary: Kadar doesn't get enough love. I, and a certain OMC, seek to remedy that. Pre-game, modern AU. Rated for... er, a situation. Eventually. Written for my friend Swellz, whom I love with all my heart 3
1. Lucky

A/N: hey, all! I have really looked forward to writing this story, and I would've had this done a long time ago if my program hadn't gone berserk and deleted all my stuff... :'(

I dedicate this story to my amazing friend Rashid, who has been the inspiration for the non-canon main character. Hope you like it!

...

It was May, this end of the school year. When heat itself seethed into the dusty air through the beat-up slats of the blinds in Kadar a-Sayf's last period class. He was waiting, like every other junior in this oven of a room, for the bell to ring so he could get on with his day.

After all, he was an assassin, or at least a novice one. He had training to do. There were others here, in his school, who shared his agenda...

Teenagers being trained to kill.

So when the bell finally let out its shrill squeal he hopped from his seat, slung his bag over his shoulder and headed into the stifling heat. Two of the other novices, Abbas ibn Fahad and Amir al-Wasem, fell into step with him at the sidewalk, coming from their own classes. Normally they left him to himself, having recently acquired girlfriends that held their after-school attentions. He didn't mind, he actually enjoyed the peace of walking alone, but it was nice to know his friends still knew he existed.

"We begin training for our first missions today," Amir cheered happily, clasping his hands together as his brown eyes went wide with wonder.

Abbas, ever the kill-joy, thumped him in the shoulder with a big paw. "We've been training for our first mission for years, Amir."

"You know what I mean. I'm so excited!"

"Don't. Not just yet. We don't know who's getting paired up with Zaim."

With that, the three of them fell silent. Zaim al-Mahran was the son of their trainer, Faruk, which meant he trained more, joked less, and was three times more antisocial. He was at the top of their class in just about everything, no surprise, and anybody who had to work with him was doomed. Once he got his orders he followed them to the letter, but he did it alone. He didn't want anybody's help. And if you tried, you were likely to end up with a bruise somewhere and some severely hurt feelings. It had been that way for almost two years now.

"... In any case, he isn't really all that bad, he's just, uh, really determined," Amir offered. He knew Zaim better than any of them - they didn't know why, but those two actually _tolerated _each other.

"Determined or not, _somebody's _getting their ass kicked when they get stuck with him," Abbas muttered, crushing any little semblance of hope they'd had. That was when Kadar noticed that the entire conversation had been directed at him.

"Why are you looking at me!" he demanded indignantly, "I'm no more afraid of him than you are."

Abbas had gone from dreadfully sober to playfully teasing. "Oh, nothing, just the fact that you'd be _crushed _if you ended up as his Brother."

"Why would I have any more of a chance of being paired with him than you?"

"They paired your brother with the biggest asshole in the class, and look how well that turned out," Amir piped up. "They're bound to do it again."

Kadar rolled his eyes. "If I'm lucky, I won't be."

Amir wore a smile that slightly scared the blue-eyed novice. "Luck can't do everything, Kadar."

...

The Fortress was an old warehouse on the outskirts of town. Rumor had it that the place had been built in the Industrial Revolution, abandoned when the ancient factories became obsolete, and had sat there, dilapidated on the coast until the Assassins settled into it and deemed it the Fortress.

It was now the base of operations for the Creed. This was where all novices trained, whether they were to be an assassin, a rafiq, or an informant. Amir was incredibly nosy, perfect for an informant, and Kadar was on the way to becoming an assassin. Abbas didn't know what he was going to do, so he would probably be assigned a mission in each category.

Each position had its own color. Assassin novices wore gray to training, and when the graduated their uniforms were white. Those training to be informants wore brown and moved on to a beige-ish, tan color, and rafiq-to-be wore black both during and after their novice-hood. The system was separated by age groups - the twenty-or-so high schoolers were to meet here everyday at four. With school having let out at two, everyone had that time to do whatever and then meet for the four hours' training. Kadar, having a nonexistent social life and nothing but homework to do, just walked straight over from school and used the extra half-hour to complete said homework.

"Safety and peace," their trainer greeted them customarily at the wide-open doorway. The three novices regarded him in return before entering the building behind him.

Although the exterior of the building still resembled its ancient, derelict past life, the inside was far from it. The 'classroom,' as it was so called, could actually pass as such. It was set up in a way that would remind any of a college room, with a multitude of desks placed about the gradually sloping floor slightly curved around the lowest, centered platform from which Faruk taught. It even had a gigantic white board. There were no chairs, though, because they saw no point in it when they could just perch on top of the desks. And right outside, through the gigantic hole that might have been a door at some point, was a large lawn, a mixture of sparse grass, rocks and dirt that they used for more hands-on training like sparring and pickpocketing. There was a gated ring out there just for that reason.

Kadar pulled his messenger bag over his shoulders and dropped it by a desk, fishing through it to retrieve his homework and writing utensils. Amir and Abbas followed suit and sat close to him; neither noticed the quiet form sitting two rows behind, hunched over a trigonometry book for the time it took them to complete their assignments.

"If you could choose your first mission, what would it be?" Amir asked, specifying no one in particular. Kadar ignored the question and continued his work, so Abbas was left to answer.

"Um... I dunno..." he mused aloud, "Tailing a businessman or something... That way I get to steal his information _and _his money."

Amir nodded his assent and turned his attention to Kadar. "Okay, your turn!" Once again he went ignored, so he resorted to poking the blue-eyed novice with his pencil's eraser. "Kadar, come _on," _he whined like a child, "Tell m-"

"Hey, blue eyes, can you and your posse shut up for a second? I got trig to do," Zaim called. He sat cross-legged on a desk, a thick math book in his lap, a calculator in one hand and a mechanical pencil in the other.

Kadar frowned, turning around to face the other novice. "I'm sorry, your _highness_," he hissed, "I didn't mean to disturb you."

Zaim shook black hair out of his face and opened his mouth to sneer something back but was cut off by his father.

"Stop acting like children, both of you," Faruk interrupted, coming down the stairs with a box in one hand and a bundle of rolled-up papers in the other. "You might as well put that away anyway, training is about to start."

Neither of them had noticed how the room had filled in while they did homework and argued. Now the room was full of teens, a thick collage of browns and grays with a few specks of black tossed in. Faruk went to the front of the classroom, placed his burden on his desk, and blew out a shrill wolf-whistle. The entire class moved as one to their seats, and within the count of three seconds every one was crouched upon a desk, a myriad of green, hazel, brown, black and blue eyes staring at Faruk in attentive silence.

"What is the truth?" he asked, as he always did to begin training.

The novices answered as one, from memory, "_We place faith in ourselves. We see the world for what it truly is, and hope that one day all of mankind would see the same."_

"What is the world?"

"_The world is an illusion, one to which we can submit, as most do, or transcend."_

"What does it mean to transcend?"

_"To recognize that nothing is true and everything is permitted."_

Faruk nodded. "Today begins your journey to live that very statement, our Creed. Each of you will be given a mission; you will plan for it and prove to me that you are prepared to act. But first, you must become Brothers."

The entire room shifted in anticipation.

"Each of you will be given a Brother today. Your Brother is your partner; unless a single person is required, you will complete each of your missions together. You will protect and trust each other as the title implies - this is crucial to the upholding of our Creed, our purpose. I will call each of you."

Kadar crouched on his desk, the familiar tingle in his knees no longer bothering him, staring unblinkingly at the novice instructor. His expression went from blank to a slight smile as Abbas and Amir were made Brothers and then to one of minor anxiety as he realized two names had yet to be called.

"Kadar, Zaim," Faruk called, an evil glint in his eye. Both novices flinched. "Since you two can't seem to get along on your own terms, you will on mine. You will now be Brothers."

The announcement sent a cold shard of sadism down Kadar's spine. Suddenly he had trouble controlling the urge to beat Amir to a pulp as he cackled and hyperventilated on his desk. "Lucky me," he hissed.

...

Short introductory chapter is short and introductory. XD

So, how was the first chapter of the Red Flower? Make sure to let me know!


	2. Training

A/N: I'm not dead! Don't worry! And neither is this story. I was just sooo stumped and I was writing Kismet and... Yeah. No more excuses, I'm just gonna do the best I can to keep the updates coming. Just to specify, Brother with a capital B refers to Zaim, while brother with a lowercase b refers to Mal.

And Swelly, you better review this time or I'm coming to get you. :D

...

"Training _sucked," _Kadar growled before taking two steps into the apartment, anticipating the question that he knew was sure to come.

"Well, hello to you, too," Malik grumbled from his vigil at the stove. The smell of his brother's cooking usually calmed Kadar out of whatever mood he was in, but he was too worked up for it to work this time.

Their parents had died ten years prior, when Kadar was six and Malik was fifteen. The elder brother set immediately to taking care of his younger, discarding his dream of college and med school in favor of getting a job. A full-time job. And this was on top of his duties as an assassin.

Altair was Malik's Brother. And his boyfriend. That being said, of course he didn't want to just sit and watch as he barely made it by; he moved in to help with the rent. He and Malik slept in the same bed like the married couple they acted like, and Kadar had his own room.

The apartment, as he saw it, was a box. The door stood in the bottom right corner, opening to a small living room with a couch, a TV with its stand, and a coffee table. A balcony was on its other side. The kitchen, which was adjacent to the front door, was tiny, but it had everything a kitchen needed. It was good enough. And down the hall were the two bedrooms and actually-kinda-roomy bathroom.

Altair called over from his recumbent position on the couch. "You aren't exactly supposed to be having fun, anyway."

Kadar decided to just glare at him when Malik actually asked what was wrong. "I'm stuck with Faruk's _brat _of a son as my Brother. I'm doomed."

"I'm sure you'll be fine," Malik sympathized, bringing food over to his brother and his Brother.

Kadar snorted. "I'm glad you think so."

...

"Hastings, this is _stupid."_

The AP history teacher just looked at him.

So Zaim went on. "A project... On a _flower_? That's the best you could come up with?"

A sadistic gleam came to the teacher's eyes. "I could always give you the 200 question test that's actually set for the curriculum."

With that, the entire class turned and glared at him as if to say _shut the hell up. _Included among those eyes was a certain pair of blue ones that he'd much rather not be glared at with. So, with a sigh, he frowned and leaned back in his seat.

After twenty minutes of silently brooding as he did his work, the bell screamed like a banshee and he got up, shoving his binder into his backpack and striding out of the classroom before Hastings could say anything to him. Unfortunately, Kadar was going the same place as he, and his Brother caught up to him rather quickly.

"Nice going," the blue eyed novice grumbled, "If we end up with that test as our final, I'm beating you up after school."

Zaim snorted, but didn't say anything. They braved the crowd of thousands of high school students and finally made it outside; they weren't even off school grounds before Amir and Abbas jumped them.

"You two are finally getting along?" Amir asked, "Good, I was tired of being the communal friend."

Zaim ignored him and Kadar answered, "Not exactly," before falling silent once more.

"What do you guys think about Hastings' final?" Abbas ventured; he had the same class as Kadar, just in another period.

The three of them answered as one. "It's _stupid_."

"Like, really, who cares about the meaning of a specific flower to history? If it weren't worth an entire grade letter, I wouldn't be doing it."

"Are you joking?" Zaim snapped, shoving his hands into his pockets, "It's a _grade_, Amir, a stupid one, but it still counts toward the total."

Kadar should've gotten whiplash with how fast he turned to look at his Brother. The taller novice didn't seem like the type to really care about grades; honestly, it seemed that he would look more comfortable with a skateboard than with his backpack. And yet here he was, fussing over a rather thoughtless dismissal of the importance of school. Of course Malik had bored this subject into his head years ago, when their parents were freshly gone from the world and his disappointment at having to give up his bright academic future was new. 'Since I can't do it, you have to,' he always used to say. The eight year old Kadar didn't fully understand what he meant, but followed his elder brother's instructions anyway.

"I said 'if', Zaim, _relax_," Amir mumbled, shying away from Abbas as he laughed at his Brother. They fell quiet for the rest of the way to the Fortress, Zaim and Abbas both contentedly silent, Amir brooding, and Kadar curiously pensive about the new fact he'd learned about the taller novice. Finally they had something in common... Not that it mattered, he was still a total dick with no regard for anyone else's opinions.

As usual, they sat in the nearly-empty Fortress on top of their desks, using the ample time to begin their homework. Kadar was halfway through his essay for English class when Faruk came down the stairs with a big box. Once again the room was full of other novices, which was totally lost to him until the Trainer's footsteps sounded above them. Upon his arrival everyone flooded to their seats, and Kadar's books retreated to his messenger bag.

After the traditional introduction Faruk spoke. "You've received your Brothers, now you receive your missions."

The novices watched in silence as he spoke.

"But before you do, I want to tell you a few things. With this being your first missions, none of you will be going far. In fact, I'm willing to bet that you'll only get as far as Jerusalem." he turned to gesture to the three maps behind him - one of Damascus, Jerusalem, and Acre. These were code names of the closest cities to the one coded as Masyaf, where the Fortress was and where each novice lived. "Your maps will be marked according to your missions; each has the location of the bureau, which is the first place you will go after I have deemed you ready. Now, your packs. They hold just about everything you'll need for your first mission... Besides what the rafiq supplies you with, of course," he picked one out of the box and emptied its contents out onto his desk. In all honesty it looked like a fanny pack, but the actual 'pack' part was too long for it to be so. "Inside is your map - which you will be using today - a small first-aid kit, binoculars, and a box of ammunition. Though this box shouldn't ever open, because your gun is only to be used if you are compromised. And you all know how to complete a mission without being compromised, correct?"

The room buzzed with statements of agreement; of course they could. They had spent the last ten or so years training to do just that. While they still had a long way to go - they may graduate sometime around eighteen, but assassin is a learn-on-the-job sort of experience - they could hold their own for a little while. Take marksmanship, for example. Each of them had taken the course two years back and each of them now had perfect aim (Zaim passed with flying colors, of course).

After a few seconds Faruk had had enough; he whistled and the room snapped to immediate silence. "Good. Now, for the love of God_, please _don't wear this around your hips! It is _not _a fanny pack. As a matter of fact..." his dark hazel eyes met the greenish pair that belonged to his son. "Zaim. Come show them how to wear it."

Zaim tensed in his crouch on the desk, and Kadar thought that he would jump the two rows of novices that separated him from the front of the room, but he just stepped down and walked up to his father. The bag went over his right shoulder and under his left arm. A third strap went under his right arm, and they met in a little black triangle. He spun in a little circle, enticing Kadar's well-timed eye roll, and looked back at the Trainer as if to say, "Can I sit down now?"

"Now that you've seen how to wear it, you need to wear these to training from now on. If you don't get used to it, you're more likely to leave it on the day of your mission."

"_Yes, Faruk_," the voices of somewhere around twenty novices blended to become one.

"Zaim, here, share this with Kadar." he handed the novice a rolled up piece or paper. "The rest of you, come pick up your missions and your packs."

Kadar felt more than saw the rest of the novices move to crowd around the Trainer. Instead his eyes were focused on Zaim... rather, the thing he was holding. It was hard to hold back the grin that threatened to spread across his face - his first mission! If only the other novice would walk a little faster to share it with him.

"Hurry the hell up, Zaim!" he called; his Brother pulled a face and stopped moving all together. Only when he fell silent at the action did Zaim resume walking to his desk. He gave the rolled paper to Kadar and looked over his shoulder as it was opened.

_Safety and Peace, novices. Today you begin your first mission - you now hold the Brotherhood on your shoulders, join the Assassins in protecting the free will of the people._

_Your first steps will take you to the port city of Acre. A cruise ship will be docking there in a month's time, carrying many templars among its passengers - including a high-ranking official. You are to identify this individual, board the ship, and enter his quarters; our intelligence tells that he travels to share information with his brothers, information which you shall steal._

_Remember that this mission is of the utmost importance, and that there is no room for failure or incompetence. It may be your first, but it is the start of many and from here on you will be held personally accountable for any and all of your actions. Faruk has taught you every skill you need to successfully complete this mission; therefore I expect no less._

_Safety and peace._

The letter ended with the assassin's seal, a symbol sort of like a triangle but not really, with rounded edges (that made the inside look like a drop of blood, now that Kadar thought about it) and small spikes along the corners. Kadar read it over again, lost in the excitement and anticipation of his first mission when Zaim reached over his shoulder and took the paper for himself.

"Infiltration - sounds like fun," he smiled, a dark sort of delight dancing in his hazel-green eyes.

Kadar, however, frowned and turned around on his desk. "Are we together on this?"

"What?" the taller novice looked up at his Brother.

"Are. We. Together. On. This," he repeated slowly, as if talking to a child. "You read our mission; Al Mualim isn't taking any crap. Which means we don't have time to argue over stupid shit - I need to know if we're going to do this together or if you're pulling the solitary act again."

"Relax, Kadar," Zaim sighed, his back forming a graceful arch ad he leaned over the edge of the desk. "My dad already read me the riot act, I don't need to get it from you, too."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I don't have to answer to you."

"About this? Yeah, you do."

"God dammit, _fine_," he hissed, "I'll work with you on the mission. But stop _bothering _me about it, we haven't even started yet."

Kadar grinned. "Persistence is an admirable quality to have."

"Annoyance isn't."

"Same difference."

...

As it turns out, Zaim was actually pretty damn smart. Some of the ideas he came up with or the possible outcomes of Kadar's own he hadn't even thought of. He knew that the older novice couldn't have been stupid - he was top of their class, you had to have some brains for that - but _geez_, he was actually _intelligent_!

As they gathered their things to go home Kadar spared a glance at his Brother. Sure, Zaim got on his nerves to no end, but he could stand it as long as they weren't idiotic insults, and the teen was easy to annoy so it wasn't unrequited. And, perhaps, if they happened to have a few more things in common, they might be able to get along.

...

A/N: it sucks, trying to be patient with writing Kadar and Zaim's interactions when I have everything already written from the moment they get together on. -_-

Anyhoo how didja like? Reviews are appreciated!


	3. Cheaters

A/N: yay! Time for a new chapter! I had to rewrite this one because it was part of the mass-deletion my computer decided to carry out. But it's ok now :) I can write unhindered again...

And, therefore, I give you chapter 3 of The Red Flower.

...

"He's a glory hogging bastard, that's what I think of him," Kadar growled to Baqir, a novice who was training to be a rafiq. They had to speak quietly because Miss Stillman, the rather ruthless English teacher, demanded they be silent while reading _Antigone_.

"_Jesus_, Kadar, what did he _do _to you?" the brown eyed boy hissed, "You've never hated anybody so fervently before."

"I don't hate him, he just-" he broke off as a soft tingle began in the back of his neck, bringing his attention to the blue glare that was directed at him from behind the teacher's computer - _Damn, this woman sees _everything, he thought _- _and hid behind the pages of Sophocles' play before finishing, "He just annoys the shit out of me."

Baqir snorted. "Everyone does - Faruk always talks about how like your brother you are."

And he was, there was no point in denying it.

After one last glare from Miss Stillman he resigned to actually do his work, and began reading the Greek play.

...

Zaim loved his trigonometry class. Mr. Antonio (he refused to have the class call him Mr. Magianis) was a great teacher, always kept him on his toes, and the room was one of the only air conditioned ones in the entire school. Not to mention the fact that he was a fuckin' _genius _at the subject. He had a 97.4 percent and he barely had to try to keep it that way.

But, with an entire forty five minutes of sitting in 55 degree AC, he welcomed the eighty or so degrees of heat that hit him when he went out the door. The sky was clear save for a few choice clouds, and a soft breeze alleviated the heat for a split second.

Kadar was walking down the sidewalk just ahead of the side door he had come out of, so he caught up to the blue-eyed novice quickly. They didn't even acknowledge each other, as they hadn't every day for the week since they were made Brothers, but Zaim had something to say.

"Alright, you can go on hating me if you want - for what, I don't even know - but we need to get started. Our maps of Acre aren't anywhere near decent."

To his slight surprise, Kadar nodded. "How do you want to start? We don't work on the mission in training and it takes to long to get help from one of the retired _Dai_." they'd learned map reading already, but it was _ages _ago.

Zaim smirked. "I have inside help."

He turned and picked a rolled-up sheet of laminated paper, then handed it over to Kadar. The blue-eyed novice took a look, "... You're a damn _cheater_."

"Took it right out of my dad's office," Zaim bragged, looking over Kadar's shoulder at the already-marked map his Brother was holding.

"He'll be proud and angry at the same time."

"Or he could never know I took it."

"How're you gonna pull that off?" Kadar asked, "He'll definitely see if we try to pull it out in training, and the only classes we have together are History and Psych."

"Yeah, we have that flower project and Machiavelli's an ass about doing other work in his class," Zaim muttered, "But we do have time after training."

"We could go to my place."

The taller boy smirked, "Look at you, being all nice and helpful."

Kadar snorted. "I'm just glad to get started."

"Nah, I think I'm warming up to you." the slightly shorter boy just looked at him when he said this, a little bit of a smirk on his face, so he went on, "What about your brother?"

"They're on a mission tonight," Kadar stated flatly.

"Good, because you know if they catch us we're dead."

"They aren't gonna catch us because they won't be there," he insisted, pushing Zaim lightly to emphasize his point.

That walk to the Fortress was the best they'd had in a long time.

...

"Dude, hurry the hell up!"

"Shut up, it's my house."

"It doesn't take that long to open the damn door."

"Shut up! If they are in here they'll hear your loud ass."

Kadar finally fell into the door, keys jingling as they smacked against the doorknob, but he didn't get far since it smacked rather solidly against Altair's forehead. The master assassin cursed and stepped back, a hand to his face as he glared from under his hood.

"Sorry," Kadar mumbled and came in the door, followed by Zaim. "We're gonna start working on our mission."

"Good," Malik said, and pulled his own hood up. "See you in the morning."

The younger a-Sayf brother nodded as Altair and Malik left, and he closed the door behind Zaim.

"'They're not gonna be home'," Kadar's Brother mocked, "'They're on a mission.'"

"Shut up, you ass."

"Not my fault you miscalculated," the hazel-eyed boy stated flatly, putting his pack on the couch and sitting beside it.

"They're gone, aren't they?" he quipped, yanking the fridge door open to grab a can of Pepsi. "Soda?"

"Ginger ale?"

"That works," he picked up one of the green cans before closing the fridge and going over to his Brother in the living room. Zaim had spread out the marked map beside his own; Kadar cracked open his coke, taking a sip before laying his own blank map of Acre beside Faruk's.

...

Zaim sighed as Kadar yawned again, struggling to focus on the half-done maps before him. He'd gone through three cans of Pepsi already, but it didn't hold a candle to the tediously boring work they were faced with. "We don't have to finish this now, you know."

"I wanted to get as much done as we can," the blue-eyed novice mumbled, rubbing his eyes for the umpteenth time. "But you're right. Again tomorrow, or no?"

"No, I'm practicing guitar tomorrow." As he said this Faruk's son began to pack up his things.

"Really? I play bass, maybe we could get together some time."

"Sure, why not." he slung his pack over his shoulder, not bothering to clip it across his chest like he was supposed to, and tossed his two cans of soda in the trash by the island in the kitchen.

"See you at school."

Zaim tossed a two-fingered salute his way before leaving. Kadar was still looking at the door a few seconds after it was closed, getting the feeling that, somehow, he had just gained a friend.


End file.
